Redwood Materials and Volkswagen Group of America announce partnership

We’re excited to announce that we're partnering with Volkswagen Group of America to recycle all end-of-life batteries from Volkswagen and Audi electric vehicles. Redwood’s mission is achieved by working with leaders across the electric vehicle and clean energy industries who share our mission to create a domestic, closed-loop battery supply chain – we’re thrilled to be embarking on this collaboration with VWGoA. 

Redwood will work directly with Volkswagen Group of America’s network of more than 1,000 dealers to recover, safely package, transport, and recycle end-of-life EV battery packs from Volkswagen and Audi vehicles. At our Northern Nevada facilities, we will recover more than 95% of the metals like nickel, cobalt, lithium and copper from their batteries and then, rather than exporting those metals overseas, use them to remanufacture anode and cathode components that we will supply back to US battery cell manufacturers without these minerals ever leaving the country. 

Annually, 6 GWh of lithium-ion batteries, enough to build more than 60,000 EVs, come through Redwood’s doors - the majority of the lithium-ion batteries recycled in North America today – and we’ve been ramping our processes in preparation for even more batteries as the first wave of electric vehicles begins to retire from our roads. Our partnership with Volkswagen Group of America will increase what’s available for Redwood to recycle so that we can make even more sustainable and affordable battery materials. As more and more electric vehicles reach end-of-life, their battery packs will provide a sizeable, infinitely recyclable resource that can continue to make EVs more and more sustainable and affordable. 

Batteries are the most expensive part of an electric vehicle, often accounting for 20-30% of the vehicle cost. To drive down the cost of electric vehicles we must reduce that material cost which can be done by localization and use of recycled content. Redwood’s end-to-end process is recapturing the value of those lithium-ion batteries and passing it to our U.S.-based cell manufacturing partners, ultimately making EVs and American manufacturing more sustainable and affordable. Additionally, given the distance the materials inside batteries must travel today from mine to battery cell – more than 50,000 miles – and these metal’s infinite recyclability, we can ensure the initial carbon cost of mining these materials can be reduced every time, making batteries more and more sustainable.  

The transition to electric transportation and clean energy is coming. Volkswagen Group of America is aiming for 55% of its U.S. sales to be fully electric by 2030 and our partnership is the first step in creating circularity for current and future vehicles. We are excited to team up with Volkswagen Group of America to further accelerate a sustainable transportation future.